Creating New Traditions

Tuesday was my wedding anniversary. Well, it should have been, but instead of celebrating eight years of marriage I have faced almost eight months of widowhood.

I wondered what other newly widowed folk do for wedding anniversaries… it occurs to me that in all my research I've never noticed anything about that. Do they celebrate quietly? Spend the day in grief? Try to just go about the day as if it were any other? I expect that if I asked ten different people they’d each have a different answer, so I just went with what felt right for me. I'd make my own little tradition to deal with this day.

I thought I'd create an anniversary that we might have had if he were with me. I started off with lunch at one of “our places." Not a fancy restaurant, we rarely went to those, just a nice, casual place that we'd visited many times. I hadn't been there since he died, it had become one of those places that I just couldn't bring myself to visit on my own, and that was why I chose it for this anniversary. I took the tablet along and sat it across from me with his photo displayed, so he could join me. It wasn't the same, but he was there. Sort of.

After lunch I thought about going for walks through some of the parks we liked, but the heat persuaded me to limit that stroll to one small park, and spend most of the time on a nice shaded bench. There were only a few people around but quite a lot of geese to keep me company. I followed the park up with a stop for a milkshake at another of our spots, then headed home. It was exactly the sort of day we might have spent, the perfect little anniversary outing. I could imagine him with me at every stop but I missed his physical presence more than ever. It was a pleasant day, but it was profoundly lonely.

That evening I watched our wedding video for the first time since he died, and it was easy to remember exactly how I felt that day. I often thought it was a blur, the day went by too fast, but the emotions are still vivid in my memory. I could remember being so happy I couldn't contain myself, smiling so much that I didn't think I would ever stop. My dreams had come true, I'd found the love of my life, someone to grow old with, and I would never be alone again. My fairy tale was getting it's happy ending.

After I watched that I spent a couple of hours crying, then pounding fists on the floor and screaming  until there was nothing left inside me. It's not fair. It's not. But all I can do is try to adapt, and try to find a way to go forward and forge new traditions.  In the end it was another yo-yo day, a bit more extreme than most but not unusual. I guess that's part of my new normal. And now it's onward to the next challenge, whatever that may be...

The day after our wedding we stopped by the church to pick up the decorations and other things. As we were getting ready to go home this song played on the mix cd we'd made for the reception, and I have a vivid memory of him stopping in the parking lot and singing it to me. Someday I may even be able to listen to it without crying my eyes out. Happy Anniversary, Jeff. I love you.

cross posted from Kything NaturesZen

Thoughts From Month Seven

Dear Jeff,

You've been gone for seven months now, Jeff. Seven. It is never going to be easier to accept that.

It's odd that sometimes I can feel okay... I move along through the day, I feel all right. I try to interact with people, I catch up with friends and get things done. Sometimes I feel good, sometimes I'm even really happy. Most of the time I'm all right, at least. Then evening rolls around and the last thing I want to do is go to bed.

Now part of this is my night owl tendencies... I never wanted to go to bed. But a bigger part is that going to bed just reminds me that you aren't there. Sometimes I try to pretend you've already gone up and you're sleeping, sometimes I hear the house creak, as it does, and for a moment I can imagine that it's you, walking to the bathroom. You're here, you're alive, and everything is okay.

Sometimes I never do go up to bed. Sometimes I sit up watching TV and surfing the internet until I'm so tired I feel like I might pass out, and I just sleep on the couch. Not because it's comfortable to sleep on, because it's not. No, I stay on the couch because then, for at least one night, I don't have to go upstairs and face the empty bed, and know once again that you are not here. It's easier to sleep on an uncomfortable couch than to be in a big bed, where I still reach out and hope that I'll feel you laying next to me.

Sometimes I think of the times you'd call when you were on the way home from work, and you'd tell me to meet you out front and we'd go out to eat, or to the store, or somewhere. You knew I had a tendency to take three times as long as I'd estimate, so you'd always remind me of the time, and tell me to be outside and ready. And I'd try to be, I'd try to be there waiting when you pulled up. Now, when I come up to bed, I can't help but whisper to you, that I'm ready. I'm ready whenever you want to come by and pick me up. I won't make you wait. But the universe must not be quite ready to send me on my way yet, because I wake up each day and start the cycle over again.

Sometimes I feel like our entire life together was really just a dream I had, one that was beautiful and wonderful, but that it wasn't real. Sometimes you are so present in my life that I know if I turned my head fast enough I'd see you there beside me. Sometimes you feel as far away as that dream... wispy, ethereal, too good to be true. Sometimes I'm certain I just spun you out of my fantasies.

Sometimes I can't even process the reality that even one day has passed. Seven months? Ha. Not real. I knew without a doubt on that first night that I'd never make it through one month. Seven is out of the question.

But I'm still here, and I'm still moving forward, even if it's just by a fraction of an inch with each step. I guess that's something.

Seven months, Jeff.

I miss you.

So Here's Today

6 months ago at this moment... I was probably sitting in the living room watching him closely because he'd been feeling way under the weather. I'd been pestering him that he should go to the ER but he was opposed. He assured me he'd make a doctor appointment the next week - he didn't have a regular doctor but he was going to start.

A healthy life was on the way.

Now it's been six months and I am living outside of the regular flow of linear time, I'm pretty sure of that. While the world is zipping past for everyone else, seasons come and go, months go by, people have birthdays and anniversaries and celebrate milestones, it's stood still for me. I'm standing outside of all of it, watching a movie.

I think time stopped six months ago yesterday, on Halloween, at somewhere around five o'clock. Six months ago when he was at work and I was at home, waiting for him to get back. Time is standing still for me. November 1 hasn't happened yet, and he's on his way home. He should be giving me a call anytime now to tell me he's leaving, and so I can think about getting dinner ready for us.

I've lived the entire past six months feeling like he's on his way home and I'm just waiting. Normal day, normal events, all I have to do is be patient. He'll be here. I sometimes tell myself that it's really true.

I know he's not going to walk in the back door. I know.

It's so odd. On one hand time has come to a standstill... on the other, I feel about twenty years older than I did six months ago. And yet, I want it to still be October 31, the last full day of my life that was normal and full of hope and good dreams.

Jeff talked about time travel. About just going through the motions of the day in such a fixed routine that you don't even think of breaking free. You just exist, you don't care about the future, you don't plan, nothing is worthwhile. You just exist. And then six months have somehow passed you by and you haven't even picked up a pair of socks from the floor on his side of the bed.

I've spent the past few days telling myself that in the next six months I'm going to begin my slow climb back to myself. I'm going to begin moving ahead, I'm going to take charge of my life and make things happen for me. I'm going to make my husband proud and emerge from my cocoon and be the person he always believed I could be.

I keep telling myself that, but today it's so hard to imagine any light at the end of the tunnel. Today it feels so dark and so hopeless. Today I just want to curl up under my blanket and cry.

The first six months are almost over, Jeff. I've survived this long, but I don't think I've lived. But I'll do my best to tackle the next six, and remind myself that I can't give up.

I love you.

But What's the Alternative to Being Strong?

Really, what would that be?

I think when people tell me how well I'm doing a big part of me feels like a huge fraud. They all think I'm strong when in fact I spend half the day feeling like I've been kicked in the stomach and I am going to fall apart.

They tell me I'm brave but it has taken me months to do things that should have been taken care of soon after he died, and I'm still so terrified of facing the future without him that it generates panic whenever I think about it and I will plunge into denial to save myself from further pain.

They tell me they don't know how I do it, but in reality what choice do I have?

I didn't live through the past six months because I'm strong and determined and want to live life to the fullest. I'm only here because I just keep waking up every day whether I like it or not. I'm not sure how brave and strong that is.

Perhaps I'm too hard on myself. I think I've based my expectations on how I should be reacting to what I've seen in media, where people always begin to move on within a few months. Of course they have no trouble, they have to get on with their lives to drive the plot forward. I don't have the benefit of writers who will find ways to ease my grief and introduce something fun and exciting into my life to move my storyline forward.

But maybe that's where the theory that I must be brave comes in. It's not easy to face something like this on your own, but I'm doing it. It's not easy to get out of bed every day but I do. Eventually. But I'm not strong or brave because I do this, I'm just going through the motions of the day.

But, as Jeff and every bit of advice out there always suggested, maybe this is a case where I just fake it till I make it. I may not be brave, I may not be strong, but as long as I keep waking up each day I might as well make the best of things. Eventually, after enough time has passed, maybe I'll even believe I'm doing well.

This week as I think about the six month anniversary of his death, I just don't know. This week I'm neither strong nor brave.

I think my storyline needs better writers.

4283 Hours

It’s been almost six months since you died. Oh, how I miss you. Six months ago today I could still curl up next to you, I could reach out and touch your cheek. Six months ago today we were still making plans for our future.

I am halfway through my first year as a widow. The term “widow” still sounds so odd. I don’t feel like a “widow.” I feel like it’s supposed to apply to other people, not me. A widow is supposed to be some tiny, ancient lady, dressed in mourning. Not someone even remotely near my age.

I’m still working on acceptance. I still have a long journey. But at least I’ve made it this far. That’s something, I think.

Kything NaturesZen

Happy Birthday

Today is a tough day to greet with a smile. Today is one of those "firsts" that I have to get through alone, today is his birthday. Today he would have turned fifty. Today would have been one of those big milestone days. We never made much fuss over birthdays, usually we'd just go out to dinner, but I think this year I'd have tried to do something special. And there would have been teasing, lots of teasing, I'd been getting a head start on that shortly after his last birthday. "I can't believe you'll be fifty! You're sooo old!" I told him. Of course he'd have given it all back to me when my time came, but I'd have had a lot of fun out of it before that happened. :)

I considered writing about what turning fifty was going to mean to us, what we'd hoped to do, what was left undone, but instead I just sat down this morning and worked on a digital painting. I'm still learning my way around the program, but I think he'd like it. He'd like that I'm trying.
Happy birthday, Jeff. I love you more than I could ever express. I miss you every day.

cross posted from Kything NaturesZen